We’re inching ever closer to the epic around-the-globe journey of the fat man in the red suit…wait, is that not PC anymore?
The pleasingly plump person who often wears red? The body positive cisgender man (he’s married to Mrs. Claus, I think, but what do we really know about his personal preferences?)…this is going down a slippery slope rapidly.
And it doesn’t quite hit the same way, does it?
Anyway, good Thursday morning. I’m going to exercise my option to give the holiday content a rest in favor of delving into an area that is most decidedly NOT my expertise: Math.
So, we’ve been down this road before. I am a word person, not a numbers person. And this has not necessarily served me well throughout my life, but I have arrived at the age when I tend to accept my weaknesses and try to work around them (thank you, calculators) rather than work ON them.
One only has so much time on the planet, and I choose to spend mine not struggling to make sense of algebraic concepts.
However, the world is, of course, made better by those people who do understand math, which is the “language” spoken in the tech word, and the finance world, and the construction world, and really, most of the world.
Even art incorporates aspects of math. Ever hear of the Golden Ratio/Divine Proportion? I rest my case.
So math, it’s a necessary evil – or a beautiful truism that is the very foundation of life – depending on how you look at it. This post is for all those who, explicably to me, but thankfully for the rest of the world, dedicate their lives to all things math-related.
People like famed Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was born on this day in 1887. At the tender age of 12, despite lacking a formal education, Ramanujan reportedly excelled at trigonometry and developed many theorems for himself.
His story only gets more amazing from there. Ramanujan was eligible for a scholarship to study at the Government Arts College, but since math was his strong point and other areas not so much he didn’t get it.
At 14, he ran away from home and enrolled at Pachaiyappa’s College, but ended up in the same predicament – great at math, but not much else – and as a result, didn’t graduate.
So he decided to pursue independent research in mathematics, even though he was in dire need of money and that didn’t pay terribly well. He did eventually find succeed in Britain, where he entered Trinity College.
In 1917, Ramanujan was elected as a member of the London Mathematical Society, and a year later became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1918 — one of the youngest individuals to do so at the time. Sadly, Britain did not agree with him from a physical standpoint; he fell ill while he was there and ended up returning home to Indian, where he died in 1920.
During his tenure, despite the fact that he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, Ramanujan made significant contributions to the world of mathematics, and was most famous for his contributions to number theory and infinite series – including formulas that can be used to calculate Pi in unusual ways.
In 2011, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared 2012 as a National Mathematics Year in India in honor of Ramanujan’s quasiquicentennial (125th anniversary, for the math challenged among us). And today is Mathematics Day, in honor of his birth.
An aside: If you happen to not be in holiday mode and checked out or traveling, you might want to tune in to the action in Albany, where state lawmakers will be voting to raise their own base pay to the highest level in the nation: $142,000 a year, though their ability to earn outside income will be capped at $35,000.
We’re in for 24 hours of rather weird weather, starting with light rain and snow developing late in the day with temperatures in the mid-to-high-30s. And then things will warm up significantly – into the 50s! – with strong winds that could gust up to 40 miles per hour. But all that will happen on Friday, and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I do, however, have to leave you with these two words: Bomb cyclone.
In the headlines…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Joe Biden at the White House ahead of a scheduled address to a joint session of Congress later in the evening.
Ukraine is “alive and kicking” Zelensky told Congress as he vowed that his country would “never surrender” to Russia. “Against all doom and gloom scenarios, Ukraine did not fall,” he said, to a thunderous ovation from lawmakers.
Following the two leaders’ first in-person meeting since the war began, Biden and Zelensky projected unity and glossed over concerns in Kyiv that the flow of aid to Ukraine could slow amid opposition from some House Republicans.
Zelensky capped his US visit by asking Congress to approve nearly $50 billion in additional aid to his country. Swift passage would not only stop Russian influence in the region, but preserve democracy as a whole, he said.
Zeleneksy appealed directly to the U.S. public, saying: “Our two nations are allies in this battle, and next year will be a turning point. I know it — the point when Ukrainian courage and American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom.”
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol released transcripts of testimony from 34 witnesses, the majority of whom pleaded the Fifth for at least some — if not most — of the panel’s questions.
Among those in the first transcript dump are former acting Assistant AG for the Civil Division Jeffrey Clark, Trump campaign lawyer John Eastman, conservative attorney Jenna Ellis, ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and Trump ally Roger Stone.
A lawyer for Trump said he will try to dismiss a lawsuit by a woman alleging the former president raped her in the 1990s by arguing New York’s Adult Survivors Act is unconstitutional, but a judge suggested he is not inclined to throw out the case.
Trump alleges in the motion to dismiss that the Act runs afoul of the New York state constitution’s due process protections. He also called the additional defamation claim the accuser, E. Jean Carroll, is bringing in the lawsuit “baseless and legally defective.”
The I.R.S. subjected Trump’s predecessor and his successor to annual tex return audits once they took office, spokespeople for both said, intensifying questions about how Trump escaped such scrutiny until House Democrats started inquiring.
The figures released by the House Ways and Means Committee showed that Trump paid $1.1 million in federal income taxes in his first three years as president, and that he paid no taxes in 2020 as his income began to dwindle.
Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems shared some of the strongest evidence yet that some Fox employees knew what they broadcast about Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election was false.
The $1.7 trillion spending bill moving through Congress contains more than 7,200 earmarks for projects in lawmakers’ home states and districts.
The days of paying to pet lion and tiger cubs, as portrayed in the hit Netflix documentary television series “Tiger King,” are officially over in the United States.
Biden has signed a bill into law that seeks to halt the exploitation of big cats by preventing unlicensed people from owning, breeding and transporting these animals.
The head of the WHO said the agency is “very concerned” about rising reports of severe coronavirus disease across China, warning that its lagging vaccination rate could result in large numbers of vulnerable people getting infected.
A haywire immune response in the olfactory system was found to explain why some people still can’t smell long after symptoms of the disease have abated, according to a small, peer-reviewed study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
As the pandemic barrels into its third winter, and Covid hospitalizations and deaths climb once again, medical experts worry that there is no effective plan to update the immunizations of the most vulnerable Americans.
Across the United States, where about 94 percent of people 65 and older had their initial Covid vaccines, only 36 percent have received the updated shot, known as the bivalent booster, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gov. Kathy Hochul granted clemency to 13 individuals, including two prisoners serving murder sentences and a domestic violence survivor sentenced for manslaughter in the death of her abuser. All told she issued nine pardons and four commutations.
Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams quietly huddled last week to hash out a targeted approach to changing the state’s controversial bail laws next year, according to multiple people with knowledge of the closed-door meeting.
Hochul reportedly tried to trade approval of a massive legislative pay raise for tougher bail rules — only to cave when Democrats secured a veto-proof majority in the state Senate.
New York’s first legal recreational marijuana sale will take place next week at a Manhattan dispensary run by a nonprofit known for its book shop and thrift stores, Hochul and state officials announced.
The social services group Housing Works will start selling weed and THC-infused edibles on Dec. 29 at its location at 750 Broadway in Greenwich Village, near NYU and Union Square.
United University Professions President Fred Kowal, whose union represents faculty and staff at New York’s public colleges and universities, in a letter urged Hochul to provide more financial support for the campuses amid budget woes.
Companies will be required to disclose work speed data and other quota-related information to workers under a measure signed by Hochul.
Employers in New York starting next year will be required to disclose salary ranges for advertised jobs and promotions.The pay disclosure law is meant to combat pay inequities between men and women, as well as for people of color.
A cap on outside income for members of the state Legislature needs to go further than the provisions proposed in a broader bill to raise legislative pay to $142,000 a year, good-government organizations said.
Republican Assembly Member-elect Lester Chang provided evidence at anAssembly Judiciary Committee hearing to back up his claims that he indeed lives in Brooklyn amid questions related to his residency.
Chang repeatedly declared, “I’m a Brooklynite! at the heated hearing.
The residency clause has not been used to oust someone elected to that chamber in a century — but the Republican’s election in a district long dominated by Democrats sent shock waves through the chamber.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming House Democratic leader, accused Long Island Republican Rep.-elect George Santos of being a “complete and utter fraud,” as a new report cast doubt on Santos’s account of his Jewish descent.
Genealogy websites show Santos’ mother’s parents were born in Brazil, not Ukraine or Belgium, as his campaign website stated.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) said that it was inquiring into allegations against Santos, including that he fabricated claims about his Jewish heritage.
There’s mounting pressure on Santos to respond to the allegations that he fabricated much of his resume and claims on the campaign trail about his background or step down.
Outside of a statement from his campaign attorney besmirching the report, Santos — who’s due to take office on Jan. 3 as the 3rd District representative for northeast Queens and northern Nassau County — has been largely silent.
Several Black leaders in New York have begun to publicly raise concerns that some of the criticism of Adams has been shaped by race – similar to what David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, experienced, undermining his ability to govern.
Adams awarded himself a B+ for his first year in office Wednesday, but demurred when asked how he’d grade Bishop Lamor Whitehead, a Brooklyn preacher he mentored and who was indicted earlier this week on federal extortion charges.
After months of emphasizing the need to address public safety, Adams appeared to make a slight but significant rhetorical shift Wednesday when he leaned on a refrain commonly used by his predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Even as the Adams administration seems close to securing hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to reimburse costs serving asylum-seekers, the mayor asked the City Council to voluntarily give up funds it controls to help the cause.
Adams’ suggestion that City Council members use funding typically reserved for their own pet causes came after two days of Council hearings devoted to the migrant crisis.
The mayor stuck to his guns when asked at a press conference about his call earlier in the week to make the Council fork over about half of the $563 million kitty they use to dole out cash to civic groups in their districts.
The Democratic mayor of El Paso, Texas, has teamed up with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to resume sending busloads of migrants to New York City ahead of the potential end of “Title 42” border restrictions.
Frank R. James, who was accused of carrying out the worst attack on the New York subway system in years, is expected to plead guilty to terrorism in connection with an April shooting spree on a train in Brooklyn, his lawyers said.
Dozens of parents and NYC council members rallied for long-sought reform bills that require city workers to verbally inform families of their legal rights at the start of a child welfare investigation.
Nearly four years after the New York City Council laid out almost $200,000 for a consulting firm to audit its internal sexual harassment policies, there’s finally something to show for it.
The NYPD has started training its rank-and-file cops on how to properly follow Adams’ mental health plan, which aims to address mental illness in the city’s homeless population.
Nearly half of the city’s public housing households are now behind in their rent, owing $450 million in all — a huge pandemic-related problem caused in part by tenants waiting for rent reimbursement from the state that will likely never come.
The MTA approved an operating budget for 2023 that authorizes the agency to begin the process of raising fares, including by scheduling public hearings on a 5.5% increase in fare and toll revenue.
A single, “underperforming” fan could upend plans to open the long-delayed, $11.6 billion Long Island Railroad terminal beneath Grand Central, the MTA said.
A Long Island attorney says he was kicked out of a Knicks game after getting flagged by facial recognition technology at Madison Square Garden — the same system the company used to boot another lawyer from a Rockettes show.
The malicious cyberattack that forced Suffolk County government offline for weeks this fall, plunging it back to the pen and paper and fax machines of the 1990s as it fought to stem the threat, began more than a year ago, county officials revealed.
The city of Buffalo announced it has filed a “first of its kind” lawsuit against the gun industry, seven months after a teenager killed 10 people and wounded three others at a Buffalo grocery store.
The Albany County Legislature is gearing up to launch a pilot program to assist residents facing eviction and prevent homelessness.
A billboard on I-90 that uses a heartbreaking story about a 10-month-old’s death in a PSA to combat drunk driving is a fake.
A federal judge declared a mistrial in the case of a man charged with robbing two Capital Region banks after an FBI agent admitted on the stand that he “forgot” to disclose nearly 200 pages of forensic lab evidence until the night before the trials expected first day.
Saratoga County District Attorney Karen A. Heggen said she was filing a suit seeking to extend the gag order prohibiting city officials from publicly discussing the shootout in downtown Saratoga Springs on Nov. 20.
If you’re opening a bar or renewing your liquor license in Saratoga Springs, city officials have an official letter at the ready automatically asking the state to mandate a 2 a.m. closing time.
The state hopes to start construction on the new $400 million Livingston Avenue bridge in Albany by the end of 2023.
Franco Harris, the Hall of Fame running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers whose shoestring catch known as the “Immaculate Reception” in 1972 remains one of the most memorable moments in N.F.L. history, died at his PA home at the age of 72.
Biden released a statement remembering Harris, with whom he said he bonded “as friends,” praising his ” character and compassion.”
